Governor Greg Abbott’s new Texas Classroom Commission is set to begin work in the coming weeks, and the teacher-workforce numbers state officials delivered to lawmakers last month define the problem it has been asked to solve: attrition is easing but still high, pay is up but is it enough, and Texas classrooms are still being filled by teachers who never earned a certificate.
Abbott announced the commission on July 7, naming it a teacher-led body of current and retired educators charged with delivering recommendations to the governor, the Texas Education Agency and the Legislature before the 90th legislative session convenes in January 2027. “Texas teachers know what their students need to succeed,” Abbott said in the statement announcing the panel, which he said would “identify innovative solutions that help students succeed, improve the learning environment in classrooms, and strengthen our schools.”
He named Courtney Boswell MacDonald of Kerrville to lead it. MacDonald is a former Dallas and Richardson ISD math teacher and currently chairs the State Board for Educator Certification, KERA reported.
The commission’s charge — classroom instruction, teacher support and student outcomes — lands against data TEA presented to the House Committee on Public Education at a June 1 interim hearing on the implementation of House Bill 2, the 89th Legislature’s $8.5 billion school-funding package. TEA Deputy Commissioner Kelvey Oeser testified that teacher attrition has come down from its 12.1% peak but remains above the pre-pandemic rate of roughly 10%, according to a recap published by Texas AFT. Uncertified teachers now make up 11.8% of the workforce, and more than half of newly hired teachers still enter without certification, though that share is declining. Oeser also reported a notable number of former teachers returning to the classroom.
The committee was told that average teacher salaries rose $4,270, or 6.3%, over the prior year because of HB 2, with a somewhat larger increase in rural systems — not enough, according to the same testimony, to close the gap between large urban districts and small rural ones.
The Teacher Incentive Allotment has continued to expand, distributing $750 million across more than 800 districts to about 65,000 designated teachers, roughly 17% of the workforce, with TEA expecting more than 1,000 districts to participate in 2026-27. Some 576 districts have applied for at least one pathway under the new preparation and retention pay allotment for the coming year.
Student results are the measure the commission will ultimately be judged against. TEA’s spring 2026 STAAR results for grades 3-8, released in June, showed grade 4 mathematics posting the largest single gain at four percentage points and reading language arts holding above pre-pandemic levels across tested grades, with grade 8 reading at 59% meeting grade level. Elementary and middle-school reading growth has otherwise stalled.
End-of-course results improved in all five subjects, with the largest gains in Biology and Algebra I. Grade 5 and 8 science results, the first under revised standards, are scheduled for release July 31, the next hard look at achievement before A-F ratings arrive in August. On the learning-environment half of the commission’s charge, educators have credited the state’s bell-to-bell cellphone restriction under HB 1481 with measurable gains in attention and reading, as The Texas Dispatch reported after the policy’s first full year.
Reaction split along familiar lines. Mary Lynn Pruneda, director of education and workforce policy at Texas 2036, called the commission a “critical opportunity to learn from and partner with educators” and said that “if this commission is to take real steps to create the No. 1 public education system in the country, there’s no group better equipped to advise than our state’s top teachers.”
Patricia Doyle, a leader with Dallas’s Alliance AFT, was cooler on the idea of another commission, telling KERA of past efforts: “We’re willing to see if another one will work.” Texas AFT argued in its own response that educators “don’t need another study” and pointed to the 2023 Teacher Vacancy Task Force recommendations that remain unimplemented.